IT Leaders Forum: IT chiefs make big savings from cloud move

IT leaders offer advice to would-be cloud users

CIOs and IT directors on the panel at Computing's IT Leaders Forum yesterday insisted that creating a business case for migration to the cloud is easy, and that trialling a solution beforehand is essential.

The discussion was prompted by a member of the audience who wanted to know how CIOs could convince financial directors and the board of the benefits of moving to the cloud when there is so much risk involved.

Alan Lee-Bourke, CIO of not-for-profit organisation The Wise Group, said: "The sums were easy for us. Our finance director loved the fact that the cloud meant no more capex, and we could work with operational expenditure.

"I just picked individual items and showed how it could work. It would cost me £25,000 for an on-premise telephony exchange for about 25 people. We now pay £2.60 per user per month.

"As a result, we are saving £300,000 a year in a 600-person organisation. They're easy savings."

John Harris, chief architect and global vice president of IT strategy at GlaxoSmithKline, said that moving into the cloud is usually prompted by an IT refresh.

"The catalyst for us moving to Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) was that we had reached a point where we had to do something. It was time for a refresh and investment was necessary," said Harris.

"I didn't have to convince the board about budgets, because doing nothing wasn't an option. This is probably going to be a factor for a lot of these commoditised services. There is going to be a trigger point where you need to make a move," he added.

Harris also argued that the cloud suits organisations that are not certain what the future holds for them.

"We weren't quite sure where our business was headed, and that was a big part of our decision," he said. "We were going to expand into certain countries, and decrease in others, and managing this was a big driver for moving to the cloud. If you know exactly what's happening over the next 10 years then maybe a cloud model is less attractive."

The panel also advised first-time cloud users to move slowly into a hosted infrastructure, saying that if CIOs and their boardroom colleagues needed to build up their confidence before committing, then they should test applications that are not mission critical.

"The core point is that you don't have to throw away everything you have when moving to the cloud," said Maurice Martin, director, server and cloud platforms for Microsoft UK.

"I think one of the biggest benefits is that you can try before you buy. You can turn on a department, or yourself, or 10 people, and try a solution at a very low financial risk," he added.

"You can play with it first and you won't be locked in with a big investment. Always try before you buy."